Time changes everything, yet nothing
by Kiasohma
Summary: How much can the hollowness in a hollow shatter? Perhaps it's for the best. 5 years before and after the war and the events in between. The “is”, the “was”, and the “could-be”, and everything that matters between a king and his horse. HichiIchi, R


_**Time Changes Everything, yet…Nothing**_

A/N: The "_is_"_,_ the "_was_", and the "_could-be_", and everything that matters between a king and his horse. I REALLY recommend, no, _advise_, you to listen to the JLS version of Umbrella. Don't listen to Rihanna's, not that it's bad, but you'll probably be having a WTF moment if you listen to her version while reading this because it just simply does not fit with Hichi and Ichi. Again, JLS version of UMBRELLA. Enjoy!

* * *

"Stop being so damn weak!! Get up!"

The shout from his hollow was getting incessantly nagging by each passing minute.

Ichigo glared through the debris falling messily from his bright, orange hair. He got up, a prominent scowl making its way up his face when he saw that Shirou was donning some sort of a bored, nonchalant face, checking his blade without any real attention to his sparring partner.

"Don't ignore me! I can still fight," shouted Ichigo, his voice rising comically high as he swung the blade down in front of him as a show of preparedness. The hollow merely shrugged an eyebrow at the action, the amusement deeply hidden behind the golden irises.

A grin slowly drew itself across Shirou's face.

"Then come at me," he said, tightening his grip on the inverse Zangetsu, "_King."_

_

* * *

_

_You have my heart  
And we'll never be worlds apart  
Maybe in magazines  
But you'll still be my star_

_

* * *

_

He was at his limit.

Ichigo gripped his mechanic pencil fiercely, the piece of utensil threatening to snap in half under such force, while its owner narrowed his eyes at a stack of books in front of him. However, his mind was somewhere else entirely.

"_Shirou_, if you complain _one_ more time about the weather, I will personally invite myself in there and crush you."

A light hum was the only respond Ichigo got, and that pissed him off even more. He groaned in frustration and ended up flinging his pencil across the blank pages of his notebook, resigned. With as much noises going on in his head, it wasn't a surprise that Ichigo wasn't able to get anything done that would be considered _qualified_ work.

The bad part about that was he couldn't use the noises as an excuse. He'd either be deemed as insane or irresponsible, and knowing his eccentric teacher, his excuses would just be ignored no matter how reasonable they sounded.

"Say, King, did you know that these windows here in ya messed up world are actually useful?" the Hollow's voice came chirping in. It was a tone more cheerful than usual, and Ichigo didn't know whether to be alarmed or relief that Shirou's mood had changed.

"What do you mean?" Ichigo asked. He couldn't help but be cautious. It seemed like something in his subconscious was badgering at him with a big, fat sign raised up high to run away.

"I'm practically _ya_ subconscious, King. Why the hell are you talking to yourself? Oh, look, so you got into your first fight in a dojo—and got beaten up by a girl!? That's just fuckin' hilarious, King!"

As soon as the comment rang through with understanding, Ichigo immediately stood up, eyes widened in shock. "How the—did you just read my mind?! Furthermore, are you going through my memories!? That incident happened over 8 years ago!"

Ichigo could only feel the hollow shrugging, brushing the outburst off as a child's tantrum that should be ignored.

Inside the dreary world, Shirou shot a glance at the sky. It appeared the storm was easing away slowly, and he couldn't help but smile at that.

He decided to reply to King's question with a mild, derided remark.

"Hey now, 's nothin' to be embarrassed of." The Hollow was snickering. "Actually, now that I think abou' it, it actually explains a lot of things."

"What things?!? And have you ever heard of personal space!? Get the fuck out of my thoughts!"

"We're practically—what do ya call it—_roommates_, King," said Shirou in glee, having remember the way humans compare things in a proverbial sense. "What's yours is mine and all that."

Ichigo nearly shrieked. "We're not _lovers_! And that's a mutual reciprocating action. As far as I'm concerned I know absolutely nothing about you, which is just fine by me if you would just STOP invading my mind!"

At this, the hollow seemed to pause in consideration, reiatsu humming in deep thought. Then he grinned.

"Well, sorry, but that can't be fixed," the hollow muttered, his excitement dying down a few degrees. Ichigo could even sense something close to brooding on Shirou's part. "I _would_ share. But 'thing is, King, I'm…not quite sure if I can remember."

Ichigo raised an eyebrow, confused. "What?"

"My memory, I guess. I—." Shirou breathed out, thinking. Sitting across the horizontal skyscrapers in the mental world, the hollow dropped his head backwards and watched the clouds floated without much care. He blinked.

"It's like, we share the same world, King," Shirou said. "For as long as I can remember, I have always been here…"

* * *

_Baby 'cause in the dark  
You can't see shiny cars  
And that's when you need me there  
With you I'll always share_

_

* * *

_

As he laid there panting, urging his exhausted body to move, to get up and fight, Ichigo absently noticed a small spark in the corner of his mind flickering at him.

"What are you doing, King? At this rate, ya _really_ gonna die," the hollow said. Ichigo could feel Shirou silently gnawing at him, as if scratching at the door of his subconscious to be let out. He resisted. "Don't give me this shit. You and I both know you need my help."

"Shut up." Ichigo couldn't even find the strength to appear demanding. His body felt like there were thousands of stones piled on top of it, crushing him, and his chest arched. Ichigo stared blankly at the open sky. Was his body so weak he couldn't even take the reiatsu around him?

"King…"

"I don't need you to come out…I can do this on my own—."

A growl, as deep as a furious beast's, made Ichigo cringed.

"Dammit, Ichigo!" Shirou yelled at him. The teen could almost make out the anger in the hollow's eyes, and he blinked in surprise. Shirou's usage of his name came as a bit of shock, but the reaction quickly passed to make way for the furious outburst of his hollow.

"Sorry to disappoint your _stupid_ anxiety, but I ain't coming out. Whoopee for you, too bad for me. Since you didn't like it and bitch about it all the time, I figure I'll tolerate being the _horse_ for a little longer…seeing as I'm gonna be stuck with you for a while, whether I like it or not," Shirou said with a small scoff. His pale hand slowly reached out, and Ichigo could barely sense it in the suffocating darkness. "Use me, King." With a swift movement, the hollow grabbed a hold of Ichigo's hand and held on to it. He leaned in and spoke in determination.

"You and Zangetsu-Ossan shared a mutual agreement of power," Shirou explained. "Do the same with me."

And as the horse offered its servitude without much reluctance, the king accepted in grateful silence.

* * *

_Because…When the sun shines, we'll shine together  
Told you I'll be here forever  
Said I'll always be a friend  
Took an oath, I'ma stick it out till the end_

_

* * *

_

"Hey, King. It's raining again. Make it stop."

Ichigo only grunted in response to the hollow's complaint. The space between them was filled with a thin silence before Shirou broke it with a huff, following it by another comment.

"What's wrong this time, hn? A girl broke up with ya? Got caught using the bathroom excuse? God, you sulk like a damn, drowned puppy!"

"Shirou, would you just be quiet!"

Frowning, the hollow sensed something that Ichigo had bitten back, and his eyes narrowed at the prospect of his king being moody about an actual serious problem. It wouldn't be fun after all to tease without getting a suitable reaction back.

A thought suddenly occurred to him.

"Hey, what day is it today?" Shirou asked.

From the way Ichigo hunched his back, fist clenching for a second before relaxing, confirmed the hollow's suspicion without much more explanation.

"It's that time of the year again, huh?" Trying to make a joke out of it, Shirou gave a snicker, but it was toned down to a level that he never knew he was capable of. Because Hollows couldn't care less about mocking an enemy, couldn't give a shit to their preys about anything other than the feelings that revolved around dominance and scorn. That's what he thought.

"Sorry, hollow." Ichigo's sudden apology jerked Shirou out of his musing, making the latter frowned. "But, you're going to have to spend the rest of the day dealing with the rain and all…"

Shirou's first thought about the statement was to reply with scoff. "Yeah well, I can't understand it, king, that feeling of familial lost. What a hopeless sight you are." He considered continuing his barrage of insults, but then paused. After a moment, the Shirou tsked at his King in irritation. "Whatever, I'm out."

The rain greeted his return with pouring glee, as if its only friend had gone off and left it alone to wash away only the dull buildings surrounding the area, and had finally returned. Shirou glanced around boringly, noticing that the old man wasn't anywhere in sight. It was to be expected of course, considering that they were practically the same existence. It was only on occasions that they somehow separated from each other unexplainably, being left to their own individual thoughts in solitude, as they rarely conversed—Zangetsu being the reticent prude that he was.

Shirou lifted the white garment sticking to his skin in disgust. His king was pathetic. "What a woman you are, _Ichigo_." He grinned. "I swear, 'don't know why I put up with ya as much as I do, damn bastard."

And as the hollow laughed at his King in grim derision, he couldn't help but feel a sense of a foreboding tempest that was on the move and rolling closer each day.

* * *

_Now that it's raining more than ever  
Know that we'll still have each other  
You can stand under my umbrella  
You can stand under my umbrella_

_

* * *

_

The moment that the hollow had deemed it appropriate to arrive without running into—a figurative sense, of course—Ichigo in his sulking state was also when the teen was sleeping. He didn't quite expect to show up in his king's room while he was passed out, but the boredom was too much for him to take, not to mention the on-going rain that hindered him from doing anything productive—not that anything productive could be done in that kind of world in the first place.

Shirou went and sat on Ichigo's bed, a bit surprised that he could actually make a dent on the mattress since technically he was incorporeal, but he didn't dwell on the matter.

He looked at the teen's face and wondered what could be making him hold back against the kid. Sure, it seemed like he was underestimating his king every time they fought, but it was as plain as day that he was making a fool out of himself on purpose. Why was that? Didn't he want to _trample_ his king under his _hooves_ and make a place for himself, make a _life_ for himself?

The Hollow groaned and resisted the urge to punch himself in the face. No good would come from that, no.

As he continued to watch Ichigo in silence, Shirou vaguely wondered what would happen after the war was over. What would his King do in his _normal_ life? What would become of the growing teenager? And more importantly…

Shirou quietly stood up and gave the room another once-over before disappearing back to his king's world.

…what would become of the white hollow?

* * *

_These fancy things, will never come in between  
You're part of my entity, here for infinity_

_

* * *

_

King had been talking to him more lately. A lot more, actually, that Shirou was a bit surprised and annoyed at the same time by the sudden tendency to socialize from Ichigo. Shirou couldn't exactly complain, though. Any kind of interaction was better than staring blankly at the sky in an almost catatonic state of utter ennui, and it was helluva lot better than trying to converse with the black tree stump that was the old man Zangetsu.

"Why the sudden interest, King?" Shirou asked with a wearied expression, his mouth dropping down into an exasperated frown.

Ichigo merely shrugged, taking no notice of his hollow's clear discomfort of having his daily routines asked about. "I don't know, just curiosity I guess." The orange-haired teen surveyed the place with a frown. "I can't picture myself lasting a whole week in this sort of place."

The hollow lifted an eyebrow at the comment. "It's ya head, King. What does that say about you?"

"Nothing that I actually am," Ichigo replied. "And you're living here. What does that say about you?"

"Me? A victim of incarceration, that's what it says." Shirou scoffed and rolled on to his back. He could feel Ichigo's gaze on him, as if to inquire his actions, and Shirou had to smile at that. "'M bored. That's what I do around this place. _Nothing_. The memories get boring after a while."

"You're not even supposed to be looking at them in the first place," chastised Ichigo, but there was no serious tone in it.

Shirou let out a small laugh, which was also unusual of him. His laugh had always been mocking and, according to Ichigo, bordering on, and sometimes going passed, insanity.

Shirou lifted his head up a notch and saw that his king was lying down like him, staring at the blue sky that was somewhat peaceful when Ichigo wasn't in one of his brooding mood.

Sometimes he just wondered if he really enjoyed King's company as much as King enjoyed his.

They really were lonesome creatures. The both of them.

* * *

_When the war has took its part  
When the world has dealt it's cards  
If the hand is hard, together we'll mend your heart  
Because…_

_

* * *

_

Time really changed everything.

They said that what people needed to move on was _time_. That _time_ was the one key to letting go, that it changed _everything_. Some denied it, and some understood that it was true.

Perhaps it was, but it didn't necessarily mean that it was in good sense.

He was acting like a fool.

Shirou brought a hand up to slick back his white hair, sighing. He stared straight into the king's brown eyes and couldn't help but wonder when it had all started to go wrong.

5 years before, people would look and see a young teen with Shinigami power who heroically aided Soul Society in the Great War against Aizen in order to save his friends, donning a hollow mask and defeating numerous Arrancars and Espadas. That was how his king was viewed as.

What most were kept in the dark about, however, was that Ichigo was not a full-fledged Shinigami, but a Vaizard.

Shirou's "popularity" was dim as it was, helping his _aibou_ all along in the shadows by lending his own power, whether it was reluctantly or willingly. He had gained nothing, received nothing worthy except the bloodlust and adrenaline rush that came with the war.

But Shirou was fine with that, as long as he could fight, rip the enemy to shreds, be the cause of some bloodshed and all that shit.

That was what he thought. He was _fine_ with it.

5 years after the war, everything changed. Ichigo got stronger. A _lot_ stronger. He trained more, fought more, and grew. What used to be a naïve boy was replaced with a young man of 20, and initially Shirou was ecstatic. Having King strong was what he had wanted, as well as the more developed way of thinking and not the naivety of "I must protect my friends" all the time.

Shirou quietly encouraged his king and outwardly teased Ichigo to keep him strong.

He blamed himself on his failure to notice the increasing lack of his king's dependence of his hollow power during these five years.

And now, Ichigo didn't even need it anymore.

The man had been using the mask less and less each passing day, relying on his own skills more than anything and damn was Shirou slow for realizing the consequences of such act.

The hollow was no longer needed. That's how it was.

He had become a responsibility for the king, doing nothing but wasting his existence away in solitude because King rarely talked to him anymore. And now there's boredom because evidently the kind of fucked up world he was living in left much to be desired.

Shirou felt like he was just a leech in his King's life, a "free-loader" like that Pineapple-head but to a much higher degree.

An irrelevant being in King's world…

He _wasn't_ _fine_ with that.

It only took that day for him to feel some sort of electric shock entering his veins like a spasm, that day when he felt like his form was blurring statically out of vision.

_That_ day when the Shinigamis came to Karakura for a survey after one particular Hollow attack, and called for a meeting.

The day when Kuchiki Rukia asked about Shirou (the "inner hollow" as they put it) and his king replied with "he's gone…"

Shirou thought that it was the first time he cried, the most a "hollow" could.

* * *

_When the sun shines, we'll shine together  
Told you I'll be here forever  
Said I'll always be a friend  
Took an oath, I'ma stick it out till the end_

_

* * *

_

He didn't know how many days it'd been since he was wallowing away in self-pity.

No, it wasn't even that. _Self-pity?_ The idea itself and its apparent association with him made him laughed.

Shirou looked at his hand. The thought that he was fading away had never before crossed his mind, and perhaps that was the thing that he was feeling. Because that was exactly what was happening, wasn't it?

He was fading away…

That's what he thought. But then one day, King had made it a point to barge into his own subconscious, something he had never really done willingly—and so violently—before. Shirou nearly had the living daylights scared out of him, what ever was left of it.

"You're suicidal," Ichigo said in accusation when he spotted Shirou sitting mindlessly on the pole Zangetsu always had the inclination to stand on. "Why the fuck are you acting all gloomy and suicidal?"

"What? The _hell_ are you going on about!? And how the hell did ya get in here?" Shirou's brows rose in something close to shock and he had to bit back the undignified shriek that he almost let out when Ichigo grabbed him suddenly by the shoulder.

Watching the same old scowl that was on the new face was not what Shirou was quite used to. The last time he had seen Ichigo it was when he was still a rash, young teen with an impulse of a blinded bull, charging head first at everything before someone actually had the nerve to yell at him twenty or something times to get the idea in his head correctly. Shirou remembered that somewhere along the way he had became one of those people.

The face that Shirou was staring into right then did not have the same innocent lines of a child. Instead, it was marred by the years of experiences, and etched skin-deep was the maturity of a grown male. The hollow briefly wondered, along with his king's growth, whether his own appearance had changed as well.

"You're not gone after all," Ichigo muttered. The relief in his voice was what pulled Shirou from his pensive observation of his king's face.

The hollow nearly blanched when he was pulled into a tight embrace. "What?"

"You're still here," Ichigo said, "You're _really _still here."

Shirou couldn't see the expression that was surely priceless on his king's face. His past self would indubitably make a fuss out of it, mocking and ridiculing Ichigo with all the happiness he was going to get in the mental world.

He couldn't say anything when King didn't let go instantly, couldn't do anything but look straight into the endless sky that had suddenly became cloudless when it had looked like it was about to storm just a few moments ago.

He couldn't find it in himself to push Ichigo away and scold at him with all the insults he had collected up thus far in solitude.

That would just be lying to himself that he wasn't glad to see Ichigo when his mind was telling him he was.

* * *

_Now that it's raining more than ever  
Know that we'll still have each other  
You can stand under my umbrella_

_

* * *

_

So, apparently, King had been trying to get in touch with him ever since his return to the material world, once Soul Society had calmed down a bit and decided to let the substitute shinigami go and get on with his damn life since no further assistance was needed.

Ichigo was complaining something about him being viewed as some sort of _thing_ by that Yama-jiji that can just be thrown out when its usefulness was over. Shirou had been laughing at him throughout the whole tale.

He asked about the fives years of King's absence in good humor, but the hole where his heart should have been was anticipating to be filled with some sort of hope that it hurt. Ichigo looked at him as if he understood, and Shirou frowned at him when he let out an "Ah," the way he usually did when something clicked in his mind.

The king said that while he didn't want to use the hollow's power anymore because it wasn't his own, and that it seemed unfair and felt like he was stealing it from Shirou—_typical of King to think like that_—he didn't want to lose contact with him either. It just so happened that his reiatsu was so used to Shirou's when he was fighting against the Arrancars that once the war was over the recognition just disappeared completely in the period that Ichigo was not using the mask.

All in all, Ichigo said while bringing his fist down to the palm of his hand, the lost of connection between them was pretty much due to his overuse of the mask and the abrupt stop of exercising it.

Shirou blinked and stayed silent. He couldn't have said anything to that, could he?

And all those time, when he felt like King had given up on him, had been ecstatic, in fact, to have "the hollow" dead and gone, he failed to think that Ichigo was trying as hard to _come in_ as Shirou was trying to _go out_.

That just snapped whatever _hollowness_ left in the hollow and cracked it into oblivion, if such things were even possible.

"I have no intention of letting go," Ichigo suddenly said in a voice full of determination. Shirou risked a glance at him and found King's eyes staring back in the same way. "The war is over, and there won't be much _chaos_ going on around so soon…" Shirou gave a light chuckle at that, wondering if King would ever know that the berserk hollow living inside him hadn't been thinking much about any bloodshed for the last few weeks, if not at all. No, the hollow was too preoccupied with something else, _someone_ else.

Ichigo's eyes looked hopeful. "I know how you hate living in this _boring_, old place and all, but…" He left his mouth parted for a few moments, as if to test if he had a good grip on the few words he was going to say next, before continuing with an awkward voice. "Won't you stay?"

Golden orbs widened at that. He didn't want to go anywhere, never quite did after the few months he's spent by his king's side—after he had gotten over that "take over Ichigo's body" phase and had been waiting expectantly for a new fight to come along. He had made a sort of an oath to himself, that, as degrading as it was for a prideful hollow such at him to "bow" down to a human, he would stay.

So how come it was so hard to say all those things to his king?

Shirou tried to pry his mouth open a bit more, but it remained parted for a small amount and no more. Being all sentimental like this wasn't his specialty, the hollow decided, so he guessed that, to make it more bearable for the both of them, he would answer with a snide remark, as he always did.

"Hah! Why not, _king_. I don't know where I'll be going if I were to be gone, but it sure as hell better not be that Rukongai place in Soul Society or Hueco Mundo. Wouldn't be able to take it. Too black, too white." Shirou snorted. "Anywhere's probably no worse than your fucked up mind anyway."  
There was no "HEY!" or "Shut up!" from Ichigo, which was a bit strange, but Shirou guessed that a lot could change in five years. He snuck a glance at his king in a form of a glare, and saw him smiling back at him.

"I see," Ichigo merely said. "I'm glad."

Shirou looked away after that and let out a "tch!" at the stupid boy.

Stupid shinigami, stupid King…

A smile tugged at his lips and the hollow didn't bother to force it down.

…stupid _hollow_, stupid _Shirou_.

* * *

_You can stand under my umbrella_.

* * *

A/N: This was done out of pure whim and the desire to write something out of a song. I listened to this version of "Umbrella" and really, I just realized how familiar it is to the "could-be" relationship between Ichigo and his Hollow. It just fits, you know, lol, but I still need a bit of a practice to writing vignettes, cus I feel like some passages are just too long for this kind of style. Oh well, tell me what you think, guys!


End file.
